Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists: Creating Music with Chuck

"Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists: Creating Music with ChucK" offers a complete introduction to programming in the open source music language ChucK. In it, you'll learn the basics of digital sound creation and manipulation while you discover the ChucK language. As you move example-by-example through this easy-to-follow book, you'll create meaningful and rewarding digital compositions and "instruments" that make sound and music in direct response to program logic, scores, gestures, and other systems connected via MIDI or the network.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About this Book

A digital musician must manipulate sound precisely. ChucK is an audio-centric programming language that provides precise control over time, audio computation, and user interface elements like track pads and joysticks. Because it uses the vocabulary of sound, ChucK is easy to learn even for artists with little or no exposure to computer programming.

"Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists" offers a complete introduction to music programming. In it, you'll learn the basics of digital sound manipulation while you learn to program using ChucK. Example-by-example, you'll create meaningful digital compositions and "instruments" that respond to program logic, scores, gestures, and other systems connected via MIDI or the network. You'll also experience how ChucK enables the on-the-fly musical improvisation practiced by communities of "live music coders" around the world.

Written for readers familiar with the vocabulary of sound and music. No experience with computer programming is required.

What's InsideLearn ChucK and digital music creation side-by-sideInvent new sounds, instruments, and modes of performanceWritten by the creators of the ChucK language

About the Authors

Perry Cook, Ajay Kapur, Spencer Salazar, and Ge Wang are pioneers in the area of teaching and programming digital music. Ge is the creator and chief architect of the ChucK language.

Table of ContentsIntroduction: ChucK programming for artistsPART 1 INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING IN CHUCKBasics: sound, waves, and ChucK programmingLibraries: ChucK's built-in toolsArrays: arranging and accessing your compositional dataSound files and sound manipulationFunctions: making your own toolsPART 2 NOW IT GETS REALLY INTERESTING!Unit generators: ChucK objects for sound synthesis and processingSynthesis ToolKit instrumentsMultithreading and concurrency: running many programs at onceObjects and classes: making your own ChucK power toolsEvents: signaling between shreds and syncing to the outside worldIntegrating with other systems via MIDI, OSC, serial, and more